Hewlett-Packard launched its first consumer community last year -- starting with English and soon afterward expanding to several foreign languages with many more on tap. The driving force behind these launches is the team headed by Lois Townsend, manager of social media strategy and operations at HP.

Lois will join Forrester senior analyst Natalie Petouhoff tomorrow (Sept. 2) for a free, live webcast where they will discuss the value of online communities and how "service and support" is fast becoming home to the "customer champion" or advocate. (Register here.)

I spoke with Lois the other day briefly to get the conversations rolling. Feel free to follow up on any of the points below with Lois during tomorrow's webcast -- or just ask the questions below in the comments area and I'll be sure to point them her way.

Tom: When did HP first add a social media element to its website - and where on the HP website was this added?  Was it strictly discussion forums?

Lois: We actually got started with this about 10 years ago when our enterprise organization launched support forums that focused on our commercial customers and IT professionals within large companies.  Within the consumer segment, we dabbled with discussion forums and community by leveraging (borrowing) the enterprise platform, and also, when we merged with Compaq, where they had been running a support community that was focused on the actual end consumer customer:  families, students, "micro" business owners, etc.

Tom: Did you have clear ROI objectives in mind when you launched the HP consumer support forums?

Lois: Yes, absolutely. The ROI was a key component of the overall business case that we presented to stakeholders and senior management.

Tom:  What has been the reaction internally to the new consumer support community?

Lois: Internal reaction to our consumer support forums has been outstanding.  We have tremendous interest and enthusiasm at all levels of the company.  We've had a number of very passionate employee enthusiasts who are active participants in the forum, and we continue to get a high level of interest from various levels of management, who are keenly interested to learn what customers are saying, and to glean valuable customer input and insight.  They frequently ask for updates and metrics, progress on our ROI, and they also enjoy informally loggin on to the community to see firsthand what customers are saying.

Also, our product development organizations appreciate the opportunity to hear firsthand how customers are using HP products, and to learn about suggestions they may have.

Tom:  In addition to support cost savings, what other measures are you looking at in terms of ROI? For example, are you also considering "Voice of the customer," or "customer-driven innovation" (indentify new product and services opportunities and how to improve existing products and services).

Lois:  Yes!  We have a team whose sole focus is to monitor and report out on emerging issues, trends, and ideas that are surfacing on the forums.  We then take this information to see how HP can learn, mitigate issues, and/or improve our products and services.  We also work to quantify this as a benefit that adds to our overall ROI.

Tom: How about SEO?

Lois:  We actively track our SEO results, and also rely on third parties (e.g. Nielsen) to help quantify the benefits we're deriving from our community in terms of impact to SEO.  While the impact has been significant (e.g. a full page of Google search results), we have not yet factored this benefit in to our ROI.

Tom:  How does customer retention also play into your ROI model?

Lois: We are measuring the customer satisfaction increase attributable to the forums, and have seen about a 15% increase since our launch.  We have a sophisticated ROI model that can quantify the benefits of the customer satisfaction benefits in terms of increase customer loyalty (retention) and the corresponding revenue benefit. 

Tom: Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today, Lois! I look forward to your webcast tomorrow. For the readers out there, feel free to ask Lois questions below in the comments area -- and I invite you to join the webcast tomorrow (Sept. 2) at 11 a.m. Pacific and 2 p.m. Eastern time.

One of the biggest questions facing organizations interested in launching peer-to-peer social networks involves determining the return on investment (ROI) -- with a particular eye on improving the customer experience while simultaneously lowering support costs.

"Most firms, when looking at building an ROI model, are focused on customer service in the beginning because that is what's tangible," said Natalie Petouhoff, Ph.D., a senior analyst at Forrester Research. "You have a gut-level instinct on what is tangible in terms of customer support."

However, additional value opportunities are equally attractive -- yet are often overlooked or under-utilized in building an ROI case, she added.

These include:

• "Voice of the customer" or "customer-driven innovation" (indentify new product and services opportunities and how to improve existing products and services).
• Reduced search engine optimization (SEO) costs
• Increased customer retention

Natalie noted that while champions of community must ultimately prove the value to management, many who are initially unable to prove ROI are forced to start with informal "ad-hoc" budgets and borrowed resources with an eye on starting small and then later proving the worth for expanded initiatives.  

To help win these battles in both cases, Natalie published a recent report titled "The ROI of Online Customer Service Communities." In it she identifies four key factors to determine ROI that encompass:

• Benefits: How will your company benefit from customer service online communities?
• Costs: How much will your company pay, both in hard costs and resources, for customer service online communities?
• Risks: How do uncertainties change the total impact of customer service online communities on your business?
• Flexibility: How does this investment in customer service online communities create future options for your organization?

Natalie will address all four factors - and will also share in-depth insights in addition to fielding participant questions - during a free, live webcast on Sept. 2 (more information and registration here).

During the webcast (which will include Lois Townsend, manager of social media strategy and operations at HP), Natalie will also review key findings from her most recent report, titled "Best Practices: Five Strategies for Customer Service Social Media Excellence."   

In the meantime, if you have questions for either Natalie or Lois that you'd like to get in ahead of time, please post them below. I'll do my best to get them addressed during the webcast (or following it). I also invite you to follow Natalie on Twitter. Her user name is drnatalie.

In this video post, Motodev social media/community manager Randy Ksar shares some tips for creating blog content -- and, as important -- for promoting posts. Be sure to check out the MOTODEV blog and follow MOTODEV (and Randy) on Twitter. 

As a veteran of forums initiatives, it's always exciting to see the launch of a support community -- especially one by a company that understands the value of unlocking its customer network to support and promote on its behalf.  The Crucial.com customer network is one such example.

The new community was designed to help customers connect with peers to solve issues related to the company's computer memory products.  Crucial.com, the online destination of memory products provider Lexar Media, has attracted more than 1,000 members in the community's first two months online.

What's even more impressive, however, is that Crucial has seen an enormous reduction in support call center traffc -- including a staggering nearly 50 percent reduction in support chat volume -- freeing up valuable company resources to deliver even better customer support.  Hence, it provides Crucial with an improved ability to scale support needs while keeping operational costs in check.

Word-of-mouth marketing

It's a win-win:  The community gives customers access to their peers, a trusted source for information and support, while easing the burden on existing support channels during a time when increased demand for better memory solutions and an expanding customer base might otherwise strain internal resources.

Fred Waddell, general manager of Crucial.com, said adding community was a way of enhancing the overall customer experience while amplifying existing word-of-mouth marketing by "exposing new customers to potentially thousands of raving fans talking about our products."

Customer-driven innovation

In addition to answering one another's questions, community members have also provided feedback to the company that has already proven valuable. For example, thanks largely to feedback from the community, Crucial.com discovered that 64-bit windows users were experiencing problems using its System Scanner tool.  After additional testing and development, the company was able to resolve the issue and make an enhanced 64-bit version of the tool available to customers.

As a computer geek myself, I'll be keeping a close eye on the Crucial.com customer network as it continues to grow and evolve. In the meantime, drop by and take a look around for yourself. And if your a fan, follow them on Twitter.

Last Thursday evening my colleagues Scott Dodds and Erik Langner accompanied me to the debut "Silicon Vallley Tweetup."

A "Tweetup," according to organizer Michael Brito, is: "A geeky term for an in-person networking event (or meet-up) with people who use Twitter." Though he was quick to add:  "But there is no official rule that you have to have a Twitter account to participate."

Michael, a social media strategist at Intel, established the "Silicon Valley Tweetup" earlier this month for two reasons:

1)    As a networking venue for area business professionals who use Twitter

2)    To give back to the community (he has partnered with several non-profit organizations)

The July 23 inaugural Tweetup, held at Rosie McCann's Irish Pub in San Jose's Santana Row, raised $650 for the George Mark Children's House and attracted some 80 "peeps."

I took the opportunity to ask Michael a few Twitter-related questions between beers.

Tom:  When did you start using Twitter?

Michael: I started using Twitter in April 2007. At first, I really didn't understand the dynamics of the tool and took six months off from using it. I jumped back in after a close friend began to "follow me" and haven't turned back since.

Tom: What's changed in how you used it then -- and how you use it today?

Michael: When I first started using Twitter, I used it as a tool to broadcast one-way messages. When I realized that no one was listening, I toned it down and became extremely more conversational.

Tom: Why should businesses pay attention and participate in Twitter?

Michael: Well, not all businesses do have to pay attention to Twitter. The feedback I usually give to others is to first see if there are any conversations going on about their brand, product/service or industry.  If there is, it's a great opportunity for brands to gain intimate customer insight and to create brand affinity within Twitter. Zappos has done it; and Comcast is well on its way to turn around their reputation of listening to their customers.

Tom: What Twitter-related metrics do you track and what do they teach you? 

Michael: There are a lot of tools to use for metrics. I use Twitalyzer. It tracks signal/noise ratio, clout and influence to name a few. Tracking my personal influence does more than stroke the ego.  Since 20 percent of the content I share on Twitter is related to Intel, this allows me to measure reach and influence for that given content. 

Tom: You wrote a "Twitter manifesto" last year. Please tell me more about your "80/20" rule.

Michael: Sure, the Twitter Manifesto is still relevant to me today.  The 80/20 ratio really separates marketing messages from authentic conversations.  80 percent of what I tweet is conversational or industry related. It involves "reweeting," asking/answering questions or uploading personal pictures. 20 percent is Intel related and usually links back to a piece of Intel content.  I use Bit.ly urls to track performance and usually see a 25-35 percent click-through rate -- which is unheard of in the search marketing world. Because those who "follow me" trust me and see me as more human than that of a logo or brand contributes significantly to that level of engagement.

Tom: What are the key elements to a good tweet?

Michael: The tweet has to have some level of humanity associated with it. Meaning, using tools like Twitterfeed are good in some cases, but should be used minimally if a brand is trying to galvanize a community. Links to relevant content should also be included to substantiate any points of view.

Awesome. Thanks, Michael!  Folks who have questions, just post them below and Michael will get back to you if he can.

And in case you missed this month's news, Lithium's new Twitter integration enables companies to stream real-time comments and questions about their brand and products directly into the customer community as well as their own management console. From there, action can be taken. A customer advocate, for example -- based on information about their profile and reputation -- might be given permission by the system to respond to a tweet directly or to start a new thread of discussion based on a tweet. Those responses not only improve the customer experience, but the amplified voice of the company can now bring more people in from the "Twittersphere" to the company's brand.

Yesterday's launch of Lithium Social CRM marks an exciting step forward for our customers -- empowering them to create a powerful network of advocates across the social web. 

Who are these mysterious advocates? They're a unique segment: Loyal enthusiasts who evangelize your brand, products and services wherever they go -- whether they're online or in the "real" world.

A great example in my own interactions with an "advocate" was at a conference last October. A fellow attendee was conducting an interview for her blog with one of those trendy Flip camcorders. That was my first glimpse at one. Afterward, I asked her about the device, which was smaller than my iPhone.

She raved about her Flip -- about how easy it was to use; how it fits in her pocket; how she never left home without it -- and then showed me all of the gadget's cool features. She told me that she blogged about her Flip; wrote a review on Amazon; and recommended the camcorders to her family, friends and acquaintances (like me).

The next day I ordered one from Amazon. And soon I became a Flip advocate, too (I have a weakness for gadgets). I blogged about mine and showed it off around the office (telling people how great it was, etc). I also wrote my own Amazon review. And, like the person who introduced me to it, I also use mine for all of my blog-related videos (like those below).    

Social CRM is all about the value of advocates. For today's post I spoke with our CMO, Sanjay Dholakia, about Lithium Social CRM which he explains allows businesses to build stronger, deeper customer relationships by integrating social customer conversations into existing CRM business processes and systems.

Part 1:  What is Social CRM and how is it different from traditional customer relationship management?

Part 2: What do organizations need to do in order to inject the "social" into their existing CRM initiatives? And once they do, what are the payoffs (for both companies and their customers)?

As I mentioned in my previous post, last week I had the privilege of speaking to a class at Stanford Continuing Studies titled "Web 2.0 and its Business Applications."

Despite being right before the July Fourth holiday, the class was full -- but thankfully, I somehow subdued my usual bout of stage fright and was able to deliver my presentation titled: "Challenges, pitfalls & possibilities of implementing and building an online community."

My conversation focused on things I learned at Intuit, Symantec and Cadence.

The class is lead by Robin Stavisky, founder and managing partner of New Venture Marketing, a high-technology marketing and communications company -- with some help from her teaching assistant, Carla Ivette Yashiro. They summed up my presentation (along with a link to download it) here.  

The class meets every Tuesday from 7-9 p.m. The students range from (suspected) undergraduates to (probable) seasoned professionals -- folks who are either finding themselves responsible for social media initiatives or who are interested in gaining insight into how social media tools can be effectively used in a wide range of scenarios.  

Robin is a fantastic lecturer. I was scheduled to speak at 8 p.m., so I sat in the back for the first hour. What I love about her teaching style is that she uses real-world examples to drive home the topic at hand. You can get a taste for some of the lectures by following her blog.

Forrester's Jeremiah Owyang and Intel social media strategist  Michael Brito (his "Twitter Manifesto" is a must-read) are scheduled to speak next Tuesday evening -- and I think I'll accept Robin's invitation to sit in on that lecture. 

A few months ago I received an invitation to speak to a class at Stanford Continuing Studies titled "Web 2.0 and its Business Applications" taught by Robin Stavisky, founder and managing partner of New Venture Marketing, a high-technology marketing and communications company.

I just completed my deck for tomorrow's presentation, titled: "the challenges, pitfalls and possibilities of implementing and building community."

I must admit that I'm extremely flattered to have been invited, because this summer's lineup of speakers includes Charlene Li, Jeremiah Owyang, Brian Solis and other social media heavyweights.

To be honest, when she called, my first reaction was: "You want me to speak to your class?"

Robin explained that she'd been following my blog conversations about my experiences building a new community for Cadence Design Systems as that company's senior social media manager last summer -- and she also followed my work at Symantec, where I launched that company's first enterprise community in early 2007.

Robin said she wanted me to focus on sharing my experiences "building a B2B community in an organization from the inside." She added that one objective was to break the (apparent) stereotype among her students (folks who want to build communities in their companies) who think that social media tools only play out in consumer companies.

I'm looking forward to the presentation and discussions that will follow. I'll try to take some good notes and report back here in the next few days. I'll also bring along my Flip camcorder and interview some folks after the Q&A session in possible.

Wish me luck!

All Lithium customers have access to our blog product -- it's built into the platform. Flipping the switch enabling blogs takes a few minutes. It's a snap. What's not so easy, however, is how to set up and manage your company's blog program.

The hardest part is making sure your company is set up internally for successful blogging. "If you build it, they will come" doesn't apply to getting even the most enthusiast employees to blog on a consistent basis. Equally important is that the person or team managing the blog program runs the entire operation like a newspaper.

This post isn't aimed at finding or recruiting bloggers -- or even about WHO should blog in your organization. That's a topic for another day.  (However, last year I did talk about the challenges recruiting your blog corps. You can read more about that topic here.)

Today I'm talking about the mindset that community managers tasked with building and managing blog programs need to succeed; that is, based upon what I've learned -- through much pain -- at what works and what doesn't work.

At Intuit, I was on the TurboTax online community team when they launched their blog -- but more as an observer. At Symantec, however, I was on point as community manager to build and manage the Symantec Technology Network (STN) -- an online community for that company's business customers, typically IT managers -- that included expert blogs.

But it wasn't until my stint at Cadence Design Systems that I uncovered the secret to corporate blogging success. That's where it dawned upon me: Your company's blog is your brand's "newspaper." And it has to be set up and managed accordingly.

As a former newspaper journalist and editor, I dusted off my "managing editor" hat and added it to the many I already had to wear as Cadence's senior "social media manager."  

With this new way of looking at the task at hand (of building and managing a corporate blogging program from scratch for the second time), the road ahead was now clear: I was assembling an editorial team and starting a newspaper. And like all newspapers mine would have: sections (group blogs), an editorial calendar, weekly editorial meetings, reporters (bloggers) and a managing editor (me).  

Rewind to a hard lesson learned.

At Symantec, blogs were just one component of the community: one I took for granted. I surmised that if I added blogs and then recruited the right folks around the company to contribute, the publishing would occur organically. I then focused my time at managing the production of white papers, expert videos -- and, most importantly -- the community's heart and soul: the peer-to-peer discussion forums.

Then I noticed something: most of the few dozen subject-matter experts who were so gung-ho to talk with their customers and peers stopped blogging after a couple weeks. Gaps in blog posts started to appear. Weeks, even months passed between posts. I was in reactive-panic mode.

At first I was polite. I'd give each blogger a call every few days to check in.

"Say, when are you going to update your blog?" I'd ask. "It's been a month since your last post..."

"Oh, sorry Tom! I've been slammed with this new (project, launch ... fill in the blank)," they'd say. "I'll get one out next week for sure."

But most never did. I'd have to track them down and pester them until (some at least) would finally relent and post something -- usually text copied and pasted from an existing datasheet, press release or some obscure marketing document.

Needless to say, the STN blogs never did get much of a following -- at least compared with the forums, which were tremendously successful right out of the gate.

So when I moved to Cadence, I did things differently. Instead of thinking of blogs as a self-governing body, I took command. With my managing editor cap planted firmly on my head, I did away with the notion of separate sections of the community for expert videos and white papers -- these could be part of the blog program: Eureka!

I could blather on all day (and would love to chat about it if you buy me a beer sometime), but in summary, here's what I learned that worked for me when creating and managing a successful blog program. (Scott Dodds and I also have a presentation that goes into much greater detail that we'd be happy to share with you and your teams. Just drop me a line to schedule a meeting.)  

But here's the key stuff...

How to Succeed (in a nutshell)
1) Identify a blog program manager - your newspaper's managing editor (your blog program will fail without one).

2) Define your target audience and objectives (your newspaper's demographics and what you want them to learn).

3) Determine what topics and types of blogs to use (your newspaper's sections and its columnists).

4) Create and actively manage an editorial calendar (start with cannibalizing the PR calendar for events, product launches, etc.).

5) Develop guidelines on what to say and how to say it (for your bloggers). This should be part of a blog workshop (blogging 101) that kicks off a series of regular editorial meetings.

6) Streamline the approval process.

7) Recruit your blog corps. Start at least three months before you launch. Train them. Coach them. But DO NOT send their posts through PR or marketing for refinement. (And don't think of starting small. If 100 people show up to your first blog workshop, maybe five or 10 will blog on a consistent basis. Recruitment never ends.)

8) Promote your blogs and engage with other bloggers outside your organization.

9) Encourage the use of video, images and other creative ways to capture attention.

10) Be prepared with procedures to handle common issues (critical comments, mainly, but also posts that don't make the grade the first time round or are inappropriate).

Common mistakes
1) Ghostwritten blogs or seeded blog comments.
2) Using fictitious characters as blog authors.
3) Heavy-handed comment moderation.
4) Posts that are too formal and polished.
5) Regurgitating existing company collateral verbatim.

OK, I guess I'm not quite done yet. So here's a bit of parting advice...

In summary:

• Your organization's blog program is a newspaper. Newspapers have sections: Front page, International, Local, Business, Sports, Entertainment, etc. These are what I call "Group" blogs and have multiple authors. You need "bylines" on each entry. Newspapers also have columnists: the rock stars (individual blogs). You might have one or two if you're lucky -- but beware of the executive blog! Soon they'll be asking for "ghostwriters" and that's a big no-no.

• Assign a dedicated blog program manager (managing editor) ... this is very important!
• Build an editorial calendar. I suggest starting with your PR team's calendar: it has a wealth of information you can use for content ideas: product releases, industry events, etc. Partner with PR if you can. But don't let them run the show or "polish" posts. 
An editorial calendar mitigates gaps between posts and keep execs informed of what's on the horizon: they generally don't like 
surprises.

• The bloggers are your reporters. Rookies need to attend a blogging boot camp (blogging/journalism 101). Bloggers must be managed with weekly editorial meetings where they can learn what's working, what's not, how to improve -- and those meetings are also the ideal place to brainstorm about building out that essential editorial calendar.

• Hand out assignments at the editorial meetings but of course "spontaneous" (breaking news, etc.) posts are always encouraged.
• Streamline the approval process
 (too many cooks...). If you have multiple VPs in the day-to-day approval process, you can pretty much give up. The managing editor should be trusted to approve posts. And when in doubt, he or she should have one go-to person in PR to make fast judgment calls.

(Attracting an audience -- that's a different conversation: if you have an active blog corps publishing regularly, and promote the blogs enough, that part works itself out. We can talk about that in another post.)

Keibi founder Pierre Grenier joined the Lithium team this week as announced today in our acquisition of that company (read the press release here for details).  

In this brief interview, Pierre talks about the technology he invented and how it helps popular social networking sites like Bebo quickly processes large volumes of user-generated content --  including text, images, animations, and video.

In addition, Keibi's technology measures and scores content across multiple dimensions, helping brand managers discover content that demands their immediate attention or that provides deeper insight into their customers' behavior.

Pretty exciting stuff! If you have questions for Pierre, please post them below and I'll make sure he sees them.